


The Bridge

by baroque_mongoose



Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Gen, POV First Person, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-02
Updated: 2014-12-02
Packaged: 2018-02-27 21:27:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2707367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baroque_mongoose/pseuds/baroque_mongoose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you're taking the dog for a walk along the riverbank, sometimes it's really useful if the dog in question happens to be a top-of-the-range clank built by Agatha Heterodyne, complete with an arsenal of useful equipment and the ability to do applied maths calculations on the spot.  Especially when someone falls in the river and you need to get them out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bridge

**Author's Note:**

> On its own, this is pretty much just a little rescue story with a fun clank; but without the background I've built up in the previous fanon, you lose half the impact.
> 
> So, for the benefit of those who have not read the previous stories, my version of Ardsley Wooster has struggled against suicidal tendencies for much of his life, starting in Paris when he was forced to kill a Russian agent called Kuchtanin in order to save both his own life and someone else's. Although he has occasionally had to kill since, he never really recovered from that incident, as he is not a natural killer in any way; it has, to a large extent, stood in his mind for all the times in his life that he has had to kill someone against the grain of his nature.
> 
> The Kuchtanin in this story is the son of this agent, who was never told that his father was a spy, and was given to understand that he drowned in the Seine; much later, as the Russian Ambassador, he met Ardsley Wooster in his capacity as the British Ambassador, and Mr Wooster confessed what he had done and explained the circumstances. Pavel Ivanovich Kuchtanin was naturally extremely shocked, but also grateful to Mr Wooster for revealing the truth to him after all these years, and well aware that Mr Wooster deeply regretted what had happened. The two men subsequently became good friends, both of them having a strong desire to bury the past and work together, especially given the alliance between their respective countries.
> 
> The Russian crisis mentioned in this story is the assassination of Tsar Arkadii, to whom Kuchtanin had an extremely strong personal loyalty. It has happened very recently, and it has clearly knocked him sideways.

My doctor says it is important that I should get regular exercise; consequently, I am now in the habit of taking the dog for a walk. The dog, I hasten to add, is not of the type that actually needs the exercise, although I do get the very strong feeling that he enjoys it. He is NIMROD, our faithful and highly ingenious canine clank, built for us by no less a person than Agatha Heterodyne. I originally started taking him because Lucilla does not like me going out rambling into the countryside on my own, given the fact that people occasionally try to assassinate me; but these days I would not want to leave him behind even if I knew I would be perfectly safe. He is good company.

As I have previously mentioned, the town where we live while we are here is on a river; in fact, the river flows past the back of our Embassy building and several adjacent embassies. One of the most pleasant walks in the area, and therefore a favourite of mine, involves walking upriver for a while, crossing at one of the bridges (and there are several, so that one can conveniently vary the length of one's walk), walking back down the other side, and then either crossing back by another bridge or taking the ferry right outside the embassies. This is what NIMROD and I were doing on this particular day.

It was a Wednesday afternoon; I had been working so many late evenings recently that Lucilla had told me straight out that I was to take the afternoon off. She does not usually order me about unless she thinks I am being particularly silly, and if she thinks that, I must confess that she is generally correct. I had been overworking; admittedly the crisis in Russia had not helped that in the slightest, but, as Lucilla put it, one man working himself into an early grave hundreds of miles from the border was probably not going to be of any significant assistance to the Russian people.

And so, here I was, strolling along the riverbank with the town behind me and the rolling hills ahead, soft wisps of cloud caught in the blue sky like wool on a fence, the birds singing in the hazel-brakes, and NIMROD rolling along cheerfully at my side. The sun shone on my face, a light breeze ruffled my hair, and, Russia notwithstanding, I was, for a while, a happy man. As I grow older, I find it easier to enjoy present happiness; it is always taken away too soon, and it is easier if one simply accepts that fact and does not waste time anticipating when it is likely to happen.

There was a figure on one of the bridges ahead of us. I could not see who it was from this distance, but my eye was caught by the fact that they were leaning dangerously far over the parapet, apparently gazing at something in the water below. Whoever it was, I was sure they could not have seen us, because they had been in this position since I first noticed them. As I watched, to my utter horror, the figure rolled forward over the parapet, lost balance, and went straight down into the water head first without a struggle or a cry.

My immediate thought was that the person had lost consciousness while leaning over, and so fallen; but I saw flailing limbs the moment they hit the water, so that seemed unlikely. I started running instinctively towards the man in the river; I could now see that it was a man.

“No, Master!” called NIMROD. “You will be no help running that way.”

Of course; he was quite right. Instinct is often a good guide, but it is not always the best we have. I have mechanical legs, made for me by Gil following a serious accident in his laboratory some years ago, and therefore I can no longer swim at all, for they are heavy. Nonetheless, even if I had still had legs of flesh and blood, I could not have swum to the rescue. The river is fast and full of dangerous currents, and I would never have been able to pull someone else to shore, especially given the fact that he was larger than I. I should simply have been swept away with him.

“Good dog,” I said. “Very well. Have you a rope?”

“Yes, Master.” I was not surprised. NIMROD had not only come with a comprehensive range of equipment; he had kept adding to it since whenever he got the chance.

“Then follow me!”

I ran like the wind back downriver. If I could get onto one of the other bridges ahead of him and have NIMROD lower me down into his path, I could stop him and pull him out that way. It would still be difficult, but it would not be suicidal on my own part. As for what it had been on the part of the man in the river, I did not know, and I would not find out without rescuing him.

NIMROD is heavy and substantial, but not enough to hold my weight in the air on his own, let alone both mine and someone else's. We therefore ran to the nearest road bridge, which has a low stone parapet topped by decorative iron railings around which the rope could be wound to give NIMROD some frictional assistance. I tied the other end of the rope round my waist, only just in time.

“Here he is,” I said. “I'm going to jump, NIMROD. You are sure it's safe?”

“Yes, Master. I have measured the coefficient of friction and performed all the necessary calculations.”

It is remarkably reassuring to have a dog who can do applied mathematics on the spot. “Good. Down I go!”

I jumped. It was by no means the first time I had had to leap into a river, but it was certainly the first time in a good many years, and, although it was a pleasant summer day, the chill still hit me so hard that for a moment I could barely even think. My arms felt suddenly clumsy and wooden, but by now the floating figure was almost on top of me, and I reached out with all the strength I could muster. Somehow, I think more through the grace of Providence than my own suddenly enfeebled ability, I caught the man and dragged his head above water.

Then I recognised him.

“Pavel Ivanovich!” I gasped.

He made no response; I am not sure he could, by that stage. But he did cough a little, and so I slapped him frantically on the back, trying to clear his lungs. He coughed more, gasped, retched, and sprayed me with water.

“NIMROD!” I called. “Pull us up. It's Kuchtanin. He's alive but half drowned.”

NIMROD started to haul. It took all my strength to hold Kuchtanin up, for he is a solidly built, heavy man even when his clothes and boots are not waterlogged; but his toes slowly but surely cleared the top of the water, and I was just starting to wonder how on earth I would get him over the parapet when, without warning, the rope broke.

We both went under water again, and there was one horrible, dizzying, clanging moment when I was sure I was drowning too. But instinct worked for me this time, because it forced me to my feet, and to my utter relief my head and shoulders broke the surface. I coughed, spluttered, gasped and shook the water out of my eyes, but I was safe, and as long as that was the case, Kuchtanin also had a chance.

I realised what had happened. The strong river currents had built up a mound of sediment around the pillar of the bridge behind me, and I was standing on that. Now I was really grateful I had the mechanical legs, because without them I would surely have been swept away; the river was buffeting me so hard that it was difficult to stay on my feet, even as things were. But, as you might expect from anything built by Gil, they were considerably stronger than my old legs. I started walking, slowly and with great difficulty, towards the pillar; once I could get my back against that, nothing could knock me over.

“Master!” called NIMROD from above. “Are you all right?”

“Yes; I'm on a bank of sediment. I am going to back up against the bridge. Go and get some help, NIMROD.”

“Yes, Master!”

Thankfully, NIMROD did not take long to find someone, because I was frozen to the marrow and Kuchtanin, of course, was in a far worse state. Some people came out to us in a boat, hauled us on board and wrapped us up in blankets; I thought I was conscious, but I was later told that I had been starting to ramble, and Kuchtanin had got so chilled that it proved to be nothing short of a miracle that he did not die of that, even though he was not drowned.

But he did not, and so, later, when he was recovered enough to talk to people, I went to see him in hospital. He looked very rueful indeed when he saw me.

“Ardsley,” he said, “I am so sorry. I could have got you killed. I had no idea you were there.”

“Ah,” I said. “So you were, as I feared, trying to kill yourself?”

He nodded. “I have not been myself since the Tsar's assassination.”

“I understand,” I replied. “Pavel Ivanovich, I know that demon. I know it very well. I have fought it many times in my life. I am the last person to want to blame you for having had dealings with it; we do not ask for it to trouble us.”

“Ah, but you have fought it, and since you are still here, you have clearly won. And many times? You must be a very strong man. I, alas, put up no fight worth speaking of, none at all.”

“Then it is fitting that you had me to fight it for you,” I replied. “I am its old enemy.” I smiled.

He managed a smile in return. “Thank you,” he said, simply.

“If it returns,” I said, “and you feel in need of help, come and tell me. It will be easier for both of us than having me pull you out of any more rivers.”

“I will.” He paused. “Tell me. How do you fight it?”

“It depends what weapons it is using when it attacks me,” I replied. “But, chiefly, it has worked by telling me that I am a useless wretch who does not deserve to live. It did that especially in the days when I was a spy; I did not have the ruthless streak which is really necessary for that occupation, I knew that very well, and the demon never lost an opportunity to tell me what a terrible spy I was. But, terrible spy or not, I always seemed to have someone who needed me and was relying on me for something, even if it was only a very small thing. And so I would fight it by reminding myself of that, and telling myself that it was better for that person to have me to help them, with all my flaws and weaknesses, than nobody there for them at all.”

He reached out a hand. I took it and clasped it firmly.

“Did you never think of reminding yourself that being a kind, compassionate and honourable human being is of much more value than being a good spy?” he asked.

“Well... things were very skewed in those days,” I replied. “And I was trying extremely hard to be a good spy. Looking back, in many respects I was one. But I never felt I was good enough, and I was never good enough for my superiors either, or at any rate that was the impression they gave me at the time. It was not until much later that I discovered how highly they really thought of me.”

“It is a great pity that we need spies at all,” said Kuchtanin. “Look what it does to those who have to do it.”

I knew very well that he was not simply referring to me. “Indeed,” I said.

“Well.” He took a deep breath. “I am alive. There is much to do. And... I may be a terrible ambassador, but I am the only one there is here. Thank you for sharing your weapons, Ardsley. I will use them, I promise.”

“You are certainly not a terrible ambassador,” I said warmly.

“I do not think you were a terrible spy. But I was a terrible ambassador when I stood on that bridge. I shall do everything I can to avoid being so again.”

I do believe, looking back, that I did not merely share those weapons with him. I think I must have given them to him; because from that day to this, I have never once felt the slightest suicidal urge myself.


End file.
